NIGHTLINE Jan 23 'Girls on the Spectrum'- includes link to story

[Jen]

Looking forward to seeing the Nightline story tonight on girls on the spectrum and the difficulty w/ diagnosis.

A big thank you to kristi, for putting herself and her family (especially her beautiful daughter) out there to help educate people!!!


link to story
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=4177353&page=1

[Jen]

 

 
 


 
Kristi Sakai, author of Finding Our Way: Creating a Supportive Home and Community for the Asperger Syndrome Family, will share her experience with autism spectrum disorders and Asperger Syndrome on ABC News World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline, Wednesday.

Kristi lives on a farm in Oregon with her three children and husband, all of whom have Asperger Syndrome. After her oldest child was diagnosed, she embarked on an intense journey of seeking out interventions only to discover they mostly applied to clinical and school settings.

She set about to "translate" these research-based strategies for home and family, which eventually led to her writing Finding Our Way, which received the Autism Society of America's 2006 Literary Work of the Year in the Family Social category.

Kristi is also the editor of the Autism Asperger Publishing Company's online newsletter: AAPC Community of Support for Parents, Professionals and People on the Spectrum.

Read more about tonight's broadcasts below. This is an excerpt from the ABC News Media Relations press release.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 21, 2008

GIRLS WITH AUTISM ON "NIGHTLINE" WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23rd

On Wednesday, Nightline continues its series on autism by exploring the relatively rare occurrence of girls with autism. In the U.S., far more boys than girls are diagnosed with autism. That fact alone has consequences: it tends to focus most of the research, effort, and money on boys. But in a surprising twist, correspondent John Donvan and producer Caren Zucker talk to several researchers and psychologists who believe there are actually more girls with autism in the U.S. than diagnosed. Not only may there be many under diagnosed girls, according to these experts, but some girls with autism may be assigned some other diagnosis. In fact these girls are often being under diagnosed or diagnosed with something else. The researchers believe that many of the symptoms are being missed, or that they are just more subtle in girls. Nightline takes an in-depth look at how girls and boys are brought up culturally, and how these differences could contribute to a misdiagnosis in girls, resulting in the harsh reality that we just don't know how many cases of girls with autism really exist.

Check your local ABC affiliate listings for times.

ABC News World News with Charles Gibson at 6:30 p.m. (ET) and then on Nightline, Wednesday,
January 23, 2008 at 11:35 p.m. (ET/PT).
 


 
 
 
 
 

[Cindy]

What a great piece- very thought provoking. Watching Kaede in the gym brought tears to my eyes.  Brought back memories of things I saw with my boys.  The teachers' comment of wondering if parenting was involved- shivers- shades of Dr. B.

[Kristi Sakai]

Thank you to the Blackwells and the other members of our community of support. As those to are close to us know, the ABC taping and the aftermath were very stressful, but in the end the outpouring of appreciation--but more importantly--the parents and grandparents who recognized children in their lives who have sought help for their families--has made every discomfort of having our "business" on TV. We have opted not to have our daughter, Kaede, watch the segments, and she doesn't want to anyway. It would be painful for her to see right now. But we hope that by sharing our and her story now, in the future she'll be able to look back and see how far she has come. It is literally a documentation of HER story, or, hee hee "herstory" (instead of "history"!)
I've been contacted by various autism orgs and centers saying that they have been flooded with phone calls from parents either saying, "Did you see that?!" Or, "I see my daughter in Kaede, can you help us?" THAT makes us SO happy, so grateful, so honored to have been a small part of increase awareness. Not just for girls though, for all children and families with autism.

As for the staff member's comment. Yeah, that was painful to hear, especially from someone in our community! But we've decided to chalk it up to "consider the source", obviously this person doesn't really know us or our children. The larger issue is that this is what families face every day: judgment, criticism, assumptions, resistence, etc... It really isn't OUR issue as much as global one. By ABC wisely including it in the story they also increased awareness of THIS issue and maybe people will think twice about being so...(I want to say STUPID, IGNORANT, RIDICULOUS)...misinformed :-)

Much love to all the parents who struggle with their children as we have. Although we have ongoing challenges, sometimes a new one every day, we gain strength in numbers as we create a larger community of support who shares the load of fighting injustice on behalf of our kids. Each one of you is an important part of that. Thank you,

Kristi Sakai a.k.a. Kaede, Kito and Tom's Mom and Nobuo's wife (He's great, they didn't show that, but he is absolutely wonderful)